Okay. I am not always the best at getting chores done. Being a disorganized, lazy creature such as myself, I’m really quite awful at it.
When I finally get around to getting something done, I don’t expect a whole lot of praise. Just a simple “Hey, thanks” would suffice. And I have to admit, sometimes I am thanked and I enjoy that, but more often than not I find something else happens. The “Nobody notices what I do until I don’t do it” paradox. I can go for ages doing something, then the one time I forget is the one time my mother notices and jumps all over.
I could go on for pages and pages about that, but the particular reason I wanted to rant today is this. I worked from 8am-12:45 at the cash register. So, four hours and forty five minutes. Not a whole lot, I realize.
So, I got home after 1 and relaxed for a little bit. Then Cody (my brother’s boyfriend; he’s living with us for a while) and I went to the store to get some things for this squash soup we wanted to make. I also noticed that the greek yogurt that we pretty much all like (but mom the most) was on sale so we got some of it. We also put gas in the truck.
When we got home I cut up the squash and put it in the oven. I suppose during that time I could have been doing more chores, but in addition to not being used to being on my feet for extended periods of time, I’ve been having considerable back pain lately (the short version: in 2007 I was a hotel housekeeper for a couple months and during that time I fucked up my lower back on the left side).
Okay. So mom gets home from work and I tell her we got her some of that yogurt. Later, I’m mixing the soup together and what do I hear?
Not “Thanks for making dinner/doing the dishes/etc”. Instead, I hear something to the effect of “Why hasn’t that little basket of laundry been folded it’s been there for two days” and also “Why is it every time I turn around I’m picking up one of these little clips?”.
I try to make a series of excuses in my mind and try to make myself believe I’m just a lazy, worthless pile of dung who is always going to be bitched at, but honestly, I’m sick of this shit.
I am not claiming to have a harder life than my mother, or my father for that matter. In fact, there are a lot of people in the world who have it a lot worse than me. Most people have it a lot harder than I do. I am aware of this.
However, this doesn’t mean that I can’t have complaints about my life or how people treat me.
My parents have done numerous things for me. The amount of my bullshit they’ve had to put up with is staggering, but I’m really sick and tired of them being rude to me all the time.
By saying that, I am not claiming that I’m never rude to them. In fact, I’ve been ruder to my parents than most people have been to theirs.
I’m just tired of feeling like nothing I ever do is enough.
Doing dishes is a big one I get bitched at for.
Basically, I get bitched at for not doing them at night, but sometimes when I’ll be doing them at 10pm or after, I get “Why are you doing dishes at this hour? You should have done them earlier.”
I get stuck in this hopeless rut of feeling like nothing is ever enough. It feels like whenever I do anything, it’s either ‘not done at the right time’, ‘not done well enough’ or ‘not done the right way’.
Let’s revisit this back pain. It’s a problem with how my left hip bone moves around in that socket, and some other shit I’m not really aware of. I just know that I don’t have a normal range of motion for an almost 25 year old. I also got a test done and I put 35 pounds more weight on my right side to compensate.
My back has been fucked up for a long time, and it’s really hard to get people to understand.
My mother always has this deal where “Well I can do it, why can’t you?” This would also surface during the “You have to make up your mind to do something and just do it” type shit, usually concerning my social anxiety/etc.
And, all right. Sometimes it is laziness. I’m not going to claim I’ve never shirked a chore just because I didn’t feel like doing it, because that would be a flat out lie.
I’m just saying that… it hurts to move. All the time. Such as me, sitting in this chair right now. When I get up, I’m still hunched over, and in a hell of a lot of pain when I try to stand up straight. I have to push on my back and take up to five steps before I’ve actually gotten myself stood up straight.
I’ve put off going in and getting this stuff seriously looked at because I’m uninsured. I can’t afford it.
It’s just that my parents have (unknowingly, I’m sure) conditioned me to think that I don’t have any valid reasons for anything, that I’m just making up bullshit to excuse my laziness. So, even when I have a legit reason like “my back fucking hurts like hell”, because I’ve been a lazy, worthless bum in the past, they write it off like a BS excuse. Because they “would be able to force themselves through it” or because “they have so much more pain and do so much more and still get shit done”, my reasoning somehow isn’t valid.
And then, when I get depressed, and sometimes am even driven to the point of crying, according to them, I need to “suck it up, you’re almost 25 years old and you’re crying like a baby blahblahblah you cry so easily”….
I don’t want anyone to think that my life is an endless shithole comprised of one unfairness after another. In a lot of ways, I have it really good. It’s just that… I’m tired of this. My parents are essentially bullying me. And I’m powerless to stop it because I can’t afford to live on my own. I have bills to pay, fines to get paid off… There’s no way in hell I’d be able to afford to live on my own. And they know this. So they guilt trip me about it at every single little tiny minute chance they get.
That’s why I’m trying to hard to do well at this cashier job. I want to earn enough money to get my license back, to make payments on bills/fines, and to start saving up for moving out.
It’s just… sometimes I feel like my parents are still bitching like they did back when I didn’t give a shit and wasn’t trying. I am trying. This is a continuous process, and it’s going to fucking take a while to really get going.
I know they’re tired of waiting, and I am too, but bitching isn’t going to make this stuff happen faster.
I tried to write a coherent blog entry but it ended up being a bunch of random oddities getting typed as they came to me. I’m sure I could tidy this up if I really felt like it, but I don’t. There’s probably some chore I’ve forgotten to do.
♫ friction and harmony ♫ 